These plans were going forward behind the scenes in Washington as the Florida Supreme Court retired Monday after questioning attorneys for both sides. Some Republicans, including Bob Dole, are talking about boycotting a Gore inaugural. A handful of Democrats, angry at the way Gore's advisers have handled the campaign and its aftermath, are openly sympathetic. The tip of the iceberg could be seen in a blind quote in The Washington Post on Monday, reportedly from a top Democratic leader: "The depth of resentment and the extraordinary hostility the Republicans already have demonstrated towards the vice president is far greater than the somewhat mild opposition that Democrats have expressed about Bush."

On Capitol Hill, legislative aides are saying that conservative ("blue dog") and moderate New Democrats will have no trouble working with Bush on Medicare, taxes, and campaign-finance reform. In certain respects, some would rather have Bush than Gore. Bush has no baggage on Capitol Hill and has worked with conservative Democrats in Texas. Gore is recognized on the Hill for the cold fish that he is. Not only does he drag the Clinton scandal wherever he goes, but he has been aloof to the Republican opposition.

The question is: at what price do the conservative Republicans go along? Though small in number, they remain the driving force within the party, shaping not only its ideology but its tactics. Bush has shown himself to be beholden to the right-wingers, his vicious smearing of John McCain in South Carolina being a prime example.

DeLay's gang of backbenchers is the delightful group that brought us impeachment. Gagging on Clinton's survival amid record high popularity, they have for the last year had to endure the president's mocking of them. For the House Republicans, Gore is a Clinton cousin, and with Hillary in the Senate, a stepping-stone to a Clinton reign for years to come. Under no circumstances are they prepared to let that happen.

"This is a corrupted, tainted process, an attempt to steal an election," Reverend Jesse Jackson said last week.

Among the claims:

That African Americans received phone calls the weekend before the election from people who claimed to be with the NAACP, urging them to vote for Bush. (Similar calls were reported in Michigan and Virginia.)

That roadblocks were set up a few hundred yards from voting places in Volusia County. Police stopped cars and ordered black men to get out of their vehicles and produce identification. (The Justice Department is reviewing the complaints to determine whether they amount to violations of law.)

That the morning after the election, employees at four predominantly black Miami-area schools which had been used as polling sites found stuffed ballot boxes, which apparently had not been counted. (The boxes were sent to elections officials.)

That, in a maneuver that smacks of the civil rights fights in the old South, substantial numbers of blacks were turned away from polling booths in various parts of the state. In Hillsborough County, sheriff's deputies who checked voter IDs allegedly claimed that the race of the prospective voterswhich is listed on Florida voter ID cardsdidn't match the race of the person standing in front of them. "I can't tell you how many times it happened," Sheila Douglas of the NAACP told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, "but it happened more often than not." (In addition, Nizam Arain, who works with Jackson's team of investigators, claimed black men in Hillsborough County were turned away from polling places as convicted felons, even though such proof was lacking. Jackson later said some black voters in the county were told there were no more ballots or that polls were closed.)

That in largely Republican Duval County about 27,000 people were disqualified when they attempted to vote. More than 12,000 disqualifications came from four districts that are mostly African American.

"While I expected some complaints, it struck me . . . that this was startling in its scope and size," said Penda Hair, director of the Advancement Project, which advocates social and racial justice. "It seems that in counties across Florida, voters who were qualified were turned away at the polls. It was a denial of the right to vote that seemed to be concentrated in African American precincts."

In the House, each state delegation would have one vote and would not be bound by the electoral votes. Republicans have majorities in 27 state delegations, while the Democrats control 17. Four delegations are tied and two are facing recounts, according to the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call.

Once right-wing Republicans adjust to the horror of it, a weak national-unity government would not necessarily be regarded negatively. The right has always worked for the withering away of federal institutions, including Congress. They prefer to see power draining out of Washington into state capitals, where, conservatives believe, what social-welfare policies that are allowed ought to be established. The model for national unity was set in the mid-'90s when Bill Clinton essentially capitulated to Newt Gingrich and the congressional Republicans, joining the conservatives in a sea change to the right on major issues such as welfare reform.

Although in theory a national-unity government should be feasible since it is in the parties' own self-interests and they agree on most major policies, there arein addition to the bottom-line question of patronage spoilsbasic differences: on, for example, defense funding, medical insurance, and the privatizing of Social Security. In Congress, national unity faces pitfalls, not the least of which entails divvying up committee slots and chairmanships. Needless to say, this would involve dealing in some way with far-right ideologues of the Armey-DeLay-Gramm stripe, who, before they were muffled, governed by screaming across the aisles in the protracted impeachment battlewhich itself precipitated many of the present divisions.

Late last week, Gore took the first opportunistic step toward national unity with his call for a meeting with Bush to smooth the way for a new government. More important than the fact that Gore was abruptly rebuffed, members of Congress were hurling wild accusations before the vice president even spoke, with Texas's Phil Gramm accusing Gore of trying "to steal the election."

Nevertheless, on Monday the conservative Heritage Foundation, which more than any other group sets the agenda for the Republican right, magnanimously called together representatives of the neoliberal New Democratic Progressive Policy Institute and the liberal Urban Institute to try to forge "a strong bipartisan consensus on a number of key public policy issues," from taxes to education to health care.